Recalling

I have an antique aparador with a mirror that cracked in transit from Baguio to Manila. How ordinary and ugly it had become. What would I do with it? Where would I place it? I hang paintings by my grandchildren: Martina’s 2008 “A Garden” with a big brown jar and colored smudges she called flowers beside two huge trees that looked like pom-poms. Mai’s sketch of a delicate estate necklace she designed hangs from a thumb tuck; so does Robbie’s oil painting of five different colors, one above the other next to his mom’s oil painting of a ballerina wearing a tutu that Mikee drew at five years old. Mai’s pastel painting at age four has a girl with blue hair and a pink dress giving a green balloon to a little boy with yellow hair under colorful buntings. Both figures stare directly into the eyes of the art critic. Hanging on its green doorknob is a ribbon attached to the tiniest eyelet rubber shoes I have ever seen; they’re Demi’s. I feel nostalgic looking at, unable to personally care for her, making me reassess the air travel distance between Florence and Manila of 18 hours(!) not including layover time and delays. Nevertheless I always tell Mai she’s nearby and a plane ticket away. During this latest visit of Mai, I noticed Demi had grown an inch taller but she still runs away from me, teasing me, taking advantage of me, because I never scold her.

“Wawa, I love you,” shouts Renzo while Demi stares, in a non-competitive manner, seemingly thinking This is the Wawa I run away from, and directs me to Kanino Piccolo. “What, Demi?” Mai answers: small dogs. Demi’s thrilled at the tiny size of three Jack Russells just newly born because their two dogs in Florence, Ralph and Lauren, are very, very big; she could ride on them but they’re hairy and scruffy. When they’re running, their steps sound like horses cantering over the gravel and grass.

Demi is forced to adjust to Philippine time. After every siesta she opens a cabinet in the master’s bedroom where we keep junk food. Her cousins and their parents do the same, so can she; she’s learned. She stares at, come to think of it, an international menagerie of Australian potato chips, Beijing champoy, See’s Chocolates, Bulacan chicharon, Iligan peanuts, US peppermints and Zamboanga Cadbury candies. Today Demi wants a red lollipop and Pablo his fried chicken, Renzo his train (it’s too hard to feed this lanky grandchild). “Let’s open all the lollipops to find the color red…” “No, no, Wawa, one.” She’s correct and she embarrasses me! Demi’s lips are stuck together with sugar; it’s time I take her to brush her teeth or she’ll be the best candidate for those expensive dentists in Florence. I reach for my toothpaste since its closer to me than hers is. “No, no!” “No?” She points to her own yellow toothpaste. “Naku this girl talaga I can’t shortcut any routine… Okay, will do…” Right after, she turns from the lavabo to see what she can find on my desk, but her attention shifts to a shell hanging from my closet door with a tassel. She puts it by her ear to hear the sound of waves. A smile on her face becomes larger when she sees the golden cowry from Samar, which Ong gave me in 1986. She hands it to my secretary, Tony, teaching him to put the shell on his ear also. What is she holding now? An eraser from my husband’s desk. She attempts to erase what took me half a day to write and uses the brush at the end to flick away her achievement: my erased column. Grandma’s reaction? I kiss her.

At two years old I don’t remember if I put on my mother’s clothes but I hope Demi will, because she looks so pretty in my Auggie Cordero three-tiered satin fuchsia skirt held up to her chest with a scarf. Naturally, it drags on the floor as she walks from room to room with her yaya Cristy guiding her steps from behind her but she points to it every day to wear. You can imagine how long it is even if she’s wearing Mai-Mai’s high-heel shoes. Completing her look, Mai puts two fuchsia flowers on Demi’s hair complementing her daughter’s complexion — white skin, huge brown eyes, bangs — but no earrings, even if mother and daughter are fastidious. Andrea runs counter to the Filipino “When she’s 18 years old and on her own” way of thinking. Andrea says, “Even if it hurts and shocks Demi with its piercing twang?” “Yes!” I recall that, too, as I hang Demi’s midget-sized rubber shoes. Didn’t she bring me to the next room and point to the blue lever of the water dispenser for a glass, saying “aqua”? “No… no caldo,” meaning not the red one, it’s hot.

What a treasure. Little memories make me a doting grandma. Why shouldn’t I be? The other day Renzo was watching TV and asked Dodot, “What happened? “I don’t know” Dot answered. “Dad, what happened?” I don’t know was the same answer Dot gave his son. “Dad, I’m watching, I want to know what happened!” Kids are so naive yet so smart and they really pick on adults like Dodot and me. Check this out: while blow-drying my hair, Demi pulls me downward, takes the bottle of Fekkai hair polish, presses the bottle’s knob to release a whole lot of liquid from her palm and presses it into my hair. There’s so much of it I have to shampoo my hair immediately; she follows me to the bathroom and flushes the toilet — every toilet she sees she flushes. Then Demi asks me to put red polish on her toes! “Do I accomplish that order now, or later? “Wait, please.” Yaya will put nail polish while I watch from the shower. After that she insists on her fingers, which I do, as she sits on my lap. But she wants to touch every item in front of us on my desk — stapler, stabilos, scissors, scotch tape, so I have to grapple for her hand and fingers that are holding a Pentel pen, smudging her nail polish, shocking her because now her nails look like bloody buwas, or wounds. “Naku, you want again, Demi?” I asked. “No, no,” she says and puts her feet up to show off her nails shaped like a xylophone.

At the airport her breadsticks fall on the floor. Bending to pick them up I tell her, “No, don’t, Demi dirty.” She reaches for the other half. “No,” says her dad. She looks at Andrea and points to the garbage bin. We obligingly pick up the scattered breadsticks and throw them into the wastebasket. I’m told children, as early as possible, two or three years old, must be taught discipline. Discipline is what she’s constantly going through and vice versa, insisting that her parents sit down with her as she watches a video of Oliver and sings aimlessly, copying Oliver, while the only audible words are “Anything for you” that almost make Mai and Andrea cry, experiencing Demi’s childhood through “Anything.” Wish that would be true for me, for a lifetime, as I learn more about my grandchildren and enjoy them.